Divine Stairway

When I was a child, I spent every Sunday evening eating ambrosial dinners on an old cedar deck in the company of my family.  Upon entering my grandma's house I’d be met by an unexpected staleness- an ambience secreted by curios of pre-60s memorabilia that she'd been too sentimental to discard- which, with all the love brewing around it, always became transformed by the catalyst of a more felicitous atmosphere.  Immediately I would hear singing up the stairs, so I'd steal away to them and slowly make my way up.  The way would be dim, and as I climbed, I would see a painting of Jesus hanging next to the brightness of an adjoining room.  The portrait would complement the singer’s voice perfectly, and at once I'd feel most comfortable, as the combination of painting and song created a pathway for me up the stairs, to light.  When I'd reach the top, while standing under his gaze- above which his heart burned externally- the brightness from the hallway would illuminate me, and an angelic voice would penetrate through the walls, clear and homely, not unlike the delicate notes of a harp cradled by a cherub high up on some rolling clouds.  When my singing aunt would see me, a joyous eruption would spring from her navel, excreting itself through the curvature of her roseate lips, making her smile as if I were greatest thing in the world. 

The intricacies of such moments are never forgotten.  It was the anticipation of her affection that gave the painting more substance than it would have otherwise, and the consequence of reaching it that likewise gave my aunt’s embrace more of it as well, so that the two were combined into the same equation despite having separate functions.  That stairway will always materialize in my mind as a beacon of love, a passage to the promised land, or, more allegorically, a stairway to heaven, with the Messiah and his embrace waiting for me at the gates.  Memories are lifeforms in themselves, in that they live and die on the metabolism of experience, always seeking preservation through an expression, whether it be through art, literature, or dreams, some of whose realities become so distorted that myths are born, and reputations are ruined.  We must listen to our memories and share with the world what we can, for without memories there would be no life or love or learning, and the stairway would crumble and fall.